Archive for February 10th, 2010
Seattle is the headquarters for some of the most recognizable names in the coffee industry, and we certainly live up to the coffee drinking stereotype. There is literally a coffeehouse on every corner, not to mention an abundance of drive-thru barista stands. Even though I have become desensitized to the litany of coffee establishments, I was still taken aback when I visited the U Village a few weeks ago.
The U Village is a shopping center near the University of Washington that experiences an unusually high amount of foot traffic. It is not uncommon to see two Starbucks within a stone’s throw of one another, but the number at U Village is excessive: there are four Starbucks in less than a ten mile radius! When I expressed my confusion with this excess, my friend informed me that one of the shops had the highest volume of sales of any Starbucks in the world. Four Starbucks and still there are huge lines? No thanks, I’ll stick with my Solis espresso machine.